


Autophobia

by Nahmar



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Also there's a mentioned character suicide, Harry has Autophobia, He flirts with Harry who is just generally frightened to be there, I just wanted to write something that I'm really experienced with, Louis has S.A.D., Louis is a bit of a manwhore, M/M, Mental Hospital AU, Seasonal Affective Disorder, Which is the fear of isolation, Which is when you get sad at certain seasons of the year, believing they are being ignored or unloved, ect - Freeform, they aren't crazy theyre just in there for their mental illnesses, this is not romanticizing mental illnesses, typically winter
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-09-25
Updated: 2015-09-25
Packaged: 2018-04-23 08:53:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,955
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4870816
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nahmar/pseuds/Nahmar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Autophobia, also called monophobia, is the specific phobia of isolation; a morbid fear of being egotistical, or a dread of being alone or isolated. Sufferers need not be physically alone, but believe that they are being ignored, unloved, threatened by intruders, and so on.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Autophobia

**Author's Note:**

> This is kinda difficult to follow so just bare with me until I start getting more into the plot. 
> 
> If you're experiencing suicidal thoughts and ideations, please contact the suicide hotline, or the local police and they will take you to a hospital like the one that these characters are in, and you will be safe from any harm that you could inflict on yourself. Take it from me, it isn't that bad and after you go, you will feel better. I promise you, things get better.

“Let’s all go around the room and tell why we’re here, okay? Let’s get to know each other, people. I see some new faces. So, Nialla, why don’t you start us off, okay?” The lady said with an overly peppy voice that rang in my ears so much that it made me think I was going even more crazy than I already was. 

I had gotten here at like, two in the morning when everyone else was asleep, and now I was sitting here with a bunch of other people who were in similar situations to mine, and talking about how we got here, our feelings, and our goals to work towards getting out of here. It was so, so aggravating. I wasn’t supposed to be here. I honestly wasn’t. I was pretty normal, just a couple of things that were driving me nuts. I thought that if I took care of them myself, then I would finally be happy. I was wrong. I couldn’t even execute my own death the right way. I was such a failure. 

All the nurses were afraid of me. They had me handcuffed with a security guard leading me on through the building to my designation that was a rock hard chair in front of what they called “The Nurses’ Station.” They still hadn’t uncuffed me until they had given me some medicine that at first I had refused to take, but eventually had listened to one of the nurses coaxing me into taking it. It had calmed me down, and they released me from my bindings and then I was able to move my arms, especially my sore shoulder. It hurt like hell, but I wasn’t going to ask for more medicine just so they could drug me up, or label me a druggie. ‘Cause I definitely wasn’t. But I could’ve bet you all the money in my wallet that there was at least one person in here for overdosing on drugs. And I would’ve been right. 

But there was one nurse that actually seemed to care. Liam. He was a man with soft brown eyes and he offered to listen to me when I said it wasn’t my fault. He sat on the bed opposite to me and listened to me and tried to help me figured out what had happened all through the rest of the morning until I had talked myself to sleep. When they woke me up for breakfast, he was gone. It must have been past his shift. But I would later find him again and everything would turn out okay. More or less. 

Breakfast was extremely difficult to handle. But, I got through it. 

They woke us about twenty minutes before they said they would take us down. There was a little speaker on the box in the middle of the two beds that the man’s boring voice spoke over.

“Wake up, it’s time for breakfast. We leave in twenty minutes. Get up, get dressed, and get ready to leave for breakfast in twenty minutes.” He said, and there was a click inside the box that let me know that the intercom was now turned off. 

I rolled myself out of bed and turned my head towards the window as I began to stretch. My shoulder still hurt, and there were marks on my wrists from where I had tried to resist being taken here last night. Everything was going wrong for me today. 

I had no clothes but the clothes that they had brought me here in, and I had slept in them, so I felt rather dirty now. But, I absolutely did not want to change into those blue scrubs that they had some people wearing back at the main part of the hospital. They probably wouldn’t fit me anyways. I was a tall lad. 

Eventually twenty minutes of me just sitting on my bed reviewing what had happened had passed, and now there was a man with what looked to be a ginger hairpiece on his head walked by and knocked on everyone’s doors, telling us to line up for breakfast. They were treating us either like kids or caged animals. I couldn’t choose, but they were acting like we belonged in an asylum. 

I drug myself out of my room with heavy eyes and an even heavier spirit. I was not in the mood to be judged today. I knew that all their eyes would go straight for my tattoos, and they would instantly make judgments about who I was and why I was here. 

There were already two people lined up, so I decided to shuffle my way to the end of the two person line and lean back against the wall, trying to stretch my back out against the hard surface. I had a little bit of back issues as it was, and the stiff bed they assigned me wasn’t very helpful. 

There was a woman and a man standing there. The woman seemed to be very pregnant, and the man had a long beard and an eyebrow piercing. He looked pretty peaceful but his eyes were a bit red from where it either seemed that he had been crying or he had just woken up about a minute before. I wouldn’t ever come to find out, nor would I ever ask. 

One more woman came out of her room, and then the man with the ginger toupee came out from the nurses station and walked down to count the people in the line. He counted four. 

“Where’s Louis?” He asked the group in general. There was a shrug from the first woman and the man beside me whispered a small “dunno”.

The tall man with the ginger toupee walked down the hall to the second door closest to the nurses’ station. He knocked on the heavy wooden door, and started to raise his voice ever so slightly once he didn’t get a response. 

“Tomlinson, it’s time to go to breakfast unless you want to get a red level.” He said, and it peaked my curiosity to what a red level was. 

“Oh my god, I can’t believe Doug is threatening Louis with a red level. Like he hasn’t gotten twenty already. This visit, nonetheless.” The pregnant woman snorted, folding her arms over her chest. She had blonde hair that went a little bit past her shoulders with some pink in her hair on the ends. She was a normal height with her sock on, but she seemed the type to wear black heels to any everyday occasion. 

I looked at her with a curious look on her face, and she just ignored my looks, and kept looking at the door that Doug was standing at. 

I turned my head to look to find a man who was slowly making his way down the blue walled hall that matched his eyes that you could see from a mile away. He had a slim figure along with his small body, and his arms had a few tattoos on them as well. It didn’t make me feel as bad anymore. He flashed his teeth at me, and I felt myself blush a little bit at his gesture. He sped up a little bit to find his place in line, and scooted past the second woman and stood beside me in line. 

“Guys, we’ve got a newbie.” He stated, his voice a bit high, but still low in the sense that you could tell he just woke up. 

“Yeah, I saw him walk in this morning when I was about to get some meds.” The blonde said, having a heavy irish accent in her voice. “Dinner last night did not settle well for me and squirt over here.” She laughed and her smile was contagious, because it made me feel a bit at ease from seeing her smile like that when she looked at me now. 

The man Doug opened the locked wooden doors that lead us out into the open from where all the other units that were containing patients in different age groups. 

While I was talking to that nurse last night by the name of Liam, he told me that every unit was separated by age so that some of the older more violent men and women were separated from the young adults that were here for various other reasons. 

The walk through the doors that opened us up into the scarier part of the hospital was definitely frightening for me at least. Knowing that I didn’t belong here and knowing that I definitely could get hurt by any of the people in here at any point in time. 

I followed in the line of people who were going on, and the man with the beard seemed to be talking to the woman carrying a baby, and they were obviously giggling about something. It made me a little uncomfortable, but I knew they probably weren’t talking about me. But it still made me feel a bit paranoid. Though I was always paranoid about something. 

Apparently the Louis guy could tell something was wrong, because he caught up to my fast pace behind the other three in the group, and put his hand on my shoulder. 

“You alright, mate? You seem kinda freaked out about this whole thing. You ever been here before?” He asked, and I shook my head, staying silent for now. “Ahh, that explains a lot.” He said, removing his hand from my shoulder. 

“Well, I can tell you you probably won’t enjoy it here. At least until you talk to your doctor. Who do you have?” He asked, and I shrugged a little bit, not knowing anything. I didn’t have anything and they barely told me a thing last night. 

“What’s the name below your on your wristband?” He asked his follow up question, and I looked down at my wristband they strapped on me last night, and read the name. 

“Demasters.” I spoke still pretty quietly as we passed by the offices and such for some of the people that were employees here for addiction services and counselors. 

“Your voice is perfect. Why don’t you speak more? What’s your name.” 

“Harry.” I say simply, blushing a little again. I was a twenty one year old man and I was blushing because of a cute boy who was complimenting me on my voice. He probably wasn’t even gay, and I was blushing. God, I was an idiot. 

“Nice to meet you, Harry. I’m Louis. Louis Tomlinson.” He says and I smile a little bit.

“Louis, no touching. You know the rules by now.” Doug hisses and he just laughs and takes his hand off my shoulders as we reach the cafeteria line. 

The bearded man had let the blonde woman go first since she was pregnant, and here Louis and I were, in the back of the line with Doug over our shoulders making sure we weren’t doing anything inappropriate. Which, we weren’t, but it still made me nervous. 

One we finally moved up to the buffet line, the man behind the food smiled at me. 

“You must be new.” I nodded. “What would you like to eat?” He asked, and I pointed to the waffles, eggs, and bacon. He gave me half a waffle, a scoop of eggs, and three strips of bacon. Which was one extra of everyone else got. I felt a little smile come on my lips and I took my tray and went to get a cup of water from the soda fountain. 

Everyone else had gotten something like a Coca-Cola or some coffee to drink, while I had gone with the healthier choice. I always seemed to do that, but since the cafeteria didn’t exactly have the healthiest choices on the buffet line. If you could even call it that. 

Louis cut ahead of me to get to the table, and smiled back at me once he took his seat, motioning for me to come sit beside him. I got my drink and set it on my boring brown tray, and made my way over to sit beside Louis and across from the bearded man. 

“Why don’t you guys introduce yourselves to Harry here. It’s his first time here.” Louis said, and they all looked towards the blonde one, who I should assume was the most talkative and possibly outgoing one since she was the first to speak up.

“I’m Nialla.” She said and smiled at me with a genuine smile as she took a sip of her hot coffee that had loads of creamer in it that looked to be caramel flavored. 

“Mason.” The man across from me said, and I nodded towards him as he then looked towards the woman with light ebony skin. 

“Opal.” She said, and kept a more serious look on her face. She didn’t smile or say anything more, she just went back to looking down at her plate and eating her scrambled eggs. 

Louis’ foot touched my ankle, and I smiled a little bit down at my food, not planning to eat any of it. I didn’t feel hungry at all, but I didn’t want them to think that I was sick or something. I just had too much going on for me to actually eat right now. After the trauma of last night, I couldn’t be bothered to. 

They took away everyone’s shoes in fear that you may choke yourself with the strings or something. So, we were all in socks except for Opal, who had on pink flip flops. 

Nialla and Louis seemed to be the most cheerful out of the whole group, so I figured I would stick with the most friendliest ones. Or the ones that just seemed to be the best to be around and not the biggest troublemakers. Though, we were adults so I didn’t see there being much of a problem with that. Though Louis seemed to be a little bit of one, seeing how Nialla had said something about him getting quite a few red levels.

Soon, breakfast was over and we were making our way back to our little unit where there were only about eight rooms with two bed apiece. We were walking, and Louis had made his way back to my side and smiled up at me a little bit. He was really intrigued by me, it seemed. 

“Why don’t you talk much, Harry?” He asked me, and I could only shrug again, honestly not wanting to speak much. I figured if I was quiet enough, they would see that I honestly didn’t belong in here and would let me out sooner rather than later. 

“Well I think you should speak up a bit. I mean, as long as you’re in here, you might as well talk to us.” He said, and I sighed.

“I’m not in here to make friends. I don’t even belong in here. It was all a mistake.” I say, a slight bit annoyed from how much he was pushing me to talk even though I thought I made it pretty obvious that I definitely did not want to be talking. 

“We’re all in here for a reason. We all need to get better. I mean, c’mon, there has to be some reason you’re in here, right?” He said, and I growled at him a bit, shaking his hand off my shoulder and picking up the pace to get a bit of distance between us. I was not about to just completely spill my past out to this guy. 

Once we got back to the unit, I went straight back to the room, and saw a big yellow piece of paper taped to my big heavy door. 

FALL RISK PATIENT

I huffed and ripped the piece of paper off the door and threw it in the paper bag in the room that was supposed to be our trash can, apparently. I was not a fall risk patient. I may have come in here under the influence of drugs, but I was not a fall risk. I mean, I had good reason for being in that state. I think. But I was not, absolutely not, crazy. 

The intercom in the room began to speak again, which made me jump and become even more irritated than I was already. This place was going to be the death of me, not out there in the world!

“Everyone get ready for group time. It will be group time in about five minutes. Everybody, get ready for group.” Doug said with his monotone voice over the speaker, and I couldn't help but slam my fist against the speaker. 

Now I have always been insecure about my hands, and god only knows why, but I have, and the edge of my hand hit the red button that was on the metal plate on the wall. 

Shit. 

A nurse came running in and shut the door behind her frantically. 

“Harry, you need to calm down. What’s the matter, sweetie?” She asked, and I just slammed my fist against the wall again. This time, harder and in a different spot so I wouldn’t set off a buzzer in the Nurses’ Station. 

“I’m not supposed to be here. I’m not supposed to fucking be here!” I screamed, and watched her walk over before I slammed my fist one last time to make sure she didn’t come any closer to me. 

She left the room and I heard some other nurses start to walk over to where my room was. 

“Should we call security on a code strong?” One of the nurses tried to say under her breath, but I could obviously hear it, because I then plowed the door shut after her. 

There was an announcement over the speakers in all of the hospital, not just our unit, and I knew they were going to come after me. I had to get out of here. I started frantically looking for something to help me break open the window so I could get out, but there was nothing. They were coming for me!

“Unit four, code strong. Unit four, code strong.” 

About a half of a minute later I heard the click of the main doors opening to the unit and footsteps rushing in and someone completely bursting through the door. Three security guards easily pinned me down without a fight from me, and I let them. I was not about to resist the fighting of security guards.

I let myself go limp as they pulled me back up to my feet and they yelled at me to stand up. 

A few nurses ran in behind the security guards, and I faced a man with raven black hair and a bit of stubble on his face. His hair was long like mine, but also his was straight instead of curly and not as long either. He told the guards to let me go, and he had a heavy northern English accent. 

“You can let him go now, boys. I’ll try to calm him down a bit. Just wait outside the door, okay?” He said, and the security guards nodded and stood me on my feet, letting me stiffen up on my own and then leaving the room. Obviously this guy was a pretty big guy in charge if he could tell them what to do. 

“T-Thanks.” I murmur a bit, rubbing my arms where they had pulled on them a bit too hard. Especially my sore shoulder. 

“So, you’re Harry, correct?” He asked, and I nodded a bit and sat down on the boring white sheets in the boring beige room with writing in the corners of the walls and a little hole by the bathroom wall. “I’m Zayn. I’m a counselor here at The Pavilion. Now, I can tell something got you a bit ruffled up, yeah? You can start by just telling me what’s up with why you started slamming doors and why they had to call that code.” He said in a soothing tone, one that actually made me want to talk about it. He was nice. I just hoped that he was going to at least stick around for a bit unlike Liam. 

“I dunno, I just got frustrated that I’m here and that stupid intercom and people telling me I need to talk. It’s just too much to take in. I’m not even supposed to be here in the first place.” I sighed and rubbed my face with my right hand that had the little cross tattoo on it that I had gotten about a year ago. 

“Well, why are you here in the first place then, Harry?” He asked, and I folded my hands together and started wringing them nervously. Liam and I had done some digging up on some facts last night, but I never really thought something like that was going to happen to me. 

“I don’t know, honestly. I just.. I can’t really remember anything about what had happened last night. All I know is really what they told me, and what they made me do. They made me take so many blood tests.” I told him honestly, and looked down at my feet that had old hospital socks on them. They were yellow, which I would later come to find out that yellow meant fall risk.

“Would you like to come to the nurses station and we can get you some medicine to help you calm down and we can see if those labs have come back yet?” He asked, and I nodded, keeping my hands together in front of me, and followed him out of the room. 

Zayn nodded to the security guards and they walked out of the unit and out onto the main floor as we made our way down the hallway up to the nurses station. 

I could see the teen unit that was just across on the other side of the walls and such, and it made me real uneasy. There was a teen girl that was across the way and she kept trying to move to get a glance of me and Zayn. 

“Nancy, can we get Harry here some Ativan? And can you check to see if we have any of his lab results back yet? We’re trying to find out some things about what happened to him last night.” Zayn spoke, and it made me a little embarrassed about what could possibly had happened. I mean, what was the worst that could have happened, right?

“Code strong all clear. Code strong all clear.” The woman over the intercom said, causing it to startle me again, but I was trying to contain my anger. It was just a bit difficult to, that was all. sometimes there was no holding me back. But I was working on it.

One of the nurses grabbed a tiny paper cup and scanned my wristband and then went to go get the medicine and water while Zayn and I waited. 

“The others are in group right now being held in there because of the code strong before, but I’m sure you can go back in and join them soon. If you want.” Zayn said, and I shook my head. All I wanted to do was see my doctor and get out. 

“I want to figure all this out first. I need to know why I’m here in the first place. It isn’t fair for me to be kept here under my will if I don’t know what’s wrong and they don’t know how to fix it.” I say, finally giving into the fact that there could be something wrong with me. I was just so nervous they would send me to somewhere permanent. But Liam assured me last night that this was only temporary. So I wasn’t too terribly nervous about it all.

We got the medicine and a manila folder with some information from the results back that they were waiting to give the doctor, but Zayn convinced them to hand them over to him first. We headed back to my room and he held onto my shoulder the whole way out of assurance, because he could tell I was a bit frightened and definitely uneasy about everything. Pus I felt sick on top of it. 

We both sat down each on a different bed, and he let me take the medicine and then asked me if I was ready to open the folder. I nodded, and he took out the first piece of paper. 

“This is going to be your urine test. This is basically going to see if there were any drugs in your system and basically anything else that may be a bit unhealthy.” He said just generally speaking, and I nodded. Liam definitely had to work hard last night to get me to pee in that cup. I did not want to do it whatsoever, but he managed to do it. 

His eyes skimmed along the pages and his eyes widened a little bit when they found something rather surprising. 

“You don’t do drugs, do you Harry? You can be honest with me, I have a policy that I can’t tell any patient’s information to anyone else.”

“No, of course I don’t! Why? What did they find?” I ask frantically, molding my hands over and over again. 

“Well, it seems to be that they found a few different drugs in here.” He said, looking up at me with a worried expression. 

And that’s when it started to come back to me. Oh god, it was all coming together. 

“Like what?” 

“Well, marijuana and methamphetamine.” He said and sighed a little bit, his deep brown eyes meeting my green ones. 

“I.. I remember a little..” I say, a great amount of shame washing over me like high tide. It couldn’t be true, could it?

“Go on.”

“I was on a bus going to Kent. You know, by the coast. I live in Cheshire with my mum, and.. some guy offered me a blunt. And I took it. Cause.. He told me it would help me relax. And I haven't gotten any sleep lately or have been happy. So I smoked it on the back of the bus. It must have been laced.. Why would anyone do that?” I look up at him, pain in my eyes.

“I don’t see why that would get you here, though.” He said, puzzled, but putting his hand on top of mine. I took my hand away from his, obviously uncomfortable with the gesture, still a bit on edge and shaking. He knew and stopped the gesture immediately, and I was thankful. 

“Liam, the nurse, told me last night that I tried to jump out in front of traffic on the motorway. I guess since it was laced, I started going crazy and just tried to kill myself.” I murmur, looking up at Zayn for some type of reassurance. He nodded solemnly and I sighed a bit, running a hand through my long brown hair. 

“Are the police going to come and question me?” I ask, and he shook his head. 

“No, probably not, Harry. They usually ignore cases like this where the guy is almost impossible to track down. Do you remember anything about him?”

“He.. had on a red hoodie. I couldn’t see much of his face since the hoodie was covering it up and I was too worried people were going to catch me smoking on the bus.” I say ashamed. It was honestly the worst mistake of my life now. I couldn’t even think about what would have happened if I hadn’t thrown myself out in traffic. I could have done something to hurt others. 

“Well, the one way besides just talking to your doctor to get you out of here is attending groups. So, if you want me to, I’ll let you in and we can take a seat in the corner together.” He offered, and though I was hesitant, I nodded.

We stood up and walked the short distance down the hall to one of the three doors on the right side of the hall. All the other doors were on the left and they were the patient’s rooms. 

Zayn out the key into the door and unlocked it and let me in first, walking in, frowning, and heading to the table in the corner and pulling up a seat. Everyone was watching me because they all knew that I was the cause of the code strong. I was the crazy one now. 

Zayn took his seat across the table from me and he whispered to me that I should probably face the group leader, and I did so after some thinking. She was a young girl. About our ages with short blonde hair and bright green eyes. She had some smile lines on her face, and it only made me dislike where this would probably be going even more. She seemed the type to gossip about the code strong and then pretend to be on your side, even though she genuinely thought you to be crazy. 

I faced her, and she began to resume the group.

“Let’s all go around the room and tell why we’re here, okay? Let’s get to know each other, people. I see some new faces. So, Nialla, why don’t you start us off, okay?”

“Well, I’m Nialla and I’m here because I started to get addicted to drinking. And I started to become an alcoholic because my boyfriend, well exboyfriend, raped me. And now I’m pregnant. So, yeah. Not good for the baby.” She said, and Mason put his hand on her shoulder and she smiled at him. They seemed to either be really good friend or a blossoming relationship. 

“Mason, would you like to go next?” The counselor asked, and he shrugged.

“Just here for overdose on Benadryl.” He said simply, obviously having gone through this a lot and not wanting to talk about it again. 

“And why did you do that, Mason?” She asked, as if he was just a small child needing to be disciplined. 

“I wanted to get high, I guess. But it went wrong.” He said and sighed a little, obviously put to shame by his actions. Of course, changing once he got out of here was a different story. Would he? Who knows.

“Opal how about you?” She then asked once there was a deafening silence that rang through the air after Mason had finished speaking. I suppose she was just waiting for him to continue on, but he wasn’t the type of guy to elaborate on his past. And I admired that about him. 

“Anger issues. I threw a bottle of beer at someone and it busted, so I had to come here before my court date. I’m probably going to jail.” She said, and it made me tense up a little bit. She did intimidate me, but I didn’t think that she would ever intentionally hurt anyone. 

“Alright, Louis, what about you? Why are you here again, darling?” She asked, and I felt myself get a bit.. jealous. I didn’t like the fact that she called him darling for some reason. I didn’t like him, so I don’t know why I was feeling this way, but I was and there was no denying it whatsoever. I felt my fists clench up, and I could feel Zayn’s brown eyes sticking on me to make sure I didn’t do anything irrational. 

Louis’ small hands felt around for something to grab onto like it was hard for him to talk about it. “Well, I uh, my sister had called the police when she found some marks on my arm and here I am again.” He said, tugging on his grey sweatshirt sleeves to cover the cuts on his arms. He was sitting in the plush chair with his legs crossed over under him, and he looked to be shifting in his seat uncomfortably. He looked back at me for a second and then looked back at his dainty hands. 

It saddened me, no, hurt me to know that the beautiful boy with the cheekbones and bright blue eyes would purposefully hurt himself. For what, a dark past? Someone had hurt him and now he was hurting himself? No, I wouldn’t stand for it. I couldn’t stand to see such a boy completely destroy himself because of something he couldn’t control. 

“Why? Why do you do that? You’re so much more than that, Louis. You deserve the world and you’re not letting yourself have it. You can’t just put yourself down and hurt yourself because you don’t think you’re enough. You’re an amazing person, Louis.” I blurt out, looking directly at him. His eyes grew wide as he looked at me and he looked as if he were about to cry. His mouth was opened a tiny bit so he could breathe now because his nose was stopped up from the tears that he was letting slide down his cheeks, and I couldn’t help but feel sorry for him. But, he deserved to hear it. 

The counselor, whose name badge said her name was Ana, looked at me and smiled a little before she opened her mouth to speak. “Harry, you got here last night in quite a state, didn’t you? Why don’t you tell us a little about why you’re here?” 

I paused as everyone looked at me, and I shook my head. “I would really rather not.” I say and Zayn smiled sympathetically at me as I looked to him for assurance. 

“That’s okay. Maybe another day, yeah? What’s your goal that you’re going to work towards to get out of here, Harry?” She asked, and I was shocked that she asked that, to be honest. She didn’t ask anybody else that. Why would she ask me that? Did she not like me?

“Talk to my doctor about getting out of here.” I say quietly and she nods, and then looks down at her piece of paper before starting to talk about self-esteem. Which, I frankly didn’t want to listen to because I had great self-esteem. 

Eventually there was a man at the door, who knocked and Opal let him in. He was tall with short hair and a bit of a beard. Not as long as Mason’s, though. 

“Can I have,” He paused to look down at his list, and then he looked back up at the room. “Harry Styles?” He said, and I stood up. He was a little bit taller than me, so I was a little intimidated. I wasn’t really excited to talk with this dude, until I found out he was my doctor.

“Hey, Dr. Demasters!” Louis chimed in happily and the man just nodded with a sturdy frown on his face. I could already tell I wasn’t going to like this guy. 

I followed him out into the hallway, and then into the first room by the double doors that were the entrance and exit to the unit was. There was a seat behind a desk and then a chair in front of that which me motioned me to sit it. It was a bit small and my knees were about to my torso, but I wasn’t going to complain because I was just thankful that he took the time to see me and I could finally get my chance to get out of here. 

“So, Harry,” He began in his monotone voice that made me sigh a little on the inside. “Tell me a little about yourself. What do you like to do for fun, what do you dislike, your past.” He said, and I felt myself squirm a little in my seat from being uncomfortable. Why was he asking me all these questions? It seemed a bit weird, but I figured if it would get me out faster, then I would tell him. 

“I, err, I like to do some art on the side of my job. I dislike my job, and I also very much hate it when I think that people ignore me. I feel unloved often, and it frightens me when I get alone in my thoughts. I don’t know, I’ve just never really admitted to that before. My sister died a little less than a year ago and it still hurts, you know?” 

“How did she die?”

“She committed suicide.” 

“Do you ever blame yourself for that?” He then asked, making me a bit mad, but then relaxing because it was true. I did blame myself for it. She hadn’t been talking to me for about two years. Ever since I moved out. We used to be so close. She would tell me everything. I could confide in here. And then she started to ignore me and it made me feel like she didn’t care about me anymore. That she was purposefully isolating me from everybody else. I nodded.

He wrote something down on his piece of paper and then looked back up to me with his dull eyes. “So, why are you here then?” He asked me. 

“I’m not one hundred percent sure, but I think I was drugged, which caused me to throw myself out into the motorway traffic.” I say with some hesitancy, looking down at my knees.

“So, can you elaborate for me on why you constantly think you’re being ignored or unloved?” He asked then, pausing to write something down before looking back up with that cold look on his face. 

“I mean, I’m not really sure, to be honest. I just constantly have this fear, this.. this paranoia that everyone hates me and that no one could love me.” I say and pull my knees to my chest a bit, just trying to calm myself down. I was getting a little anxious and that was never a good thing. 

“Well, I’ll tell you what, there may be some medicine that can help with that. Seems to me that you have all the symptoms of Autophobia.” 

“Autophobia?” I ask, bewildered. 

“The fear of being alone, isolated, or being unloved.” He said, pointing the end of his pen at me for a moment. “Seems to be the most logical reason of why you would throw yourself out in traffic, even though you had been drugged.” He said. “No one on drugs would just randomly do that if their thoughts weren’t racing with suicidal ideations. Which, Autophobia can most certainly cause.”

It all made sense, but I didn’t want to believe the idea that something was wrong with me. I was perfectly fine. I was normal and I could go on living my life. I was just a little paranoid, that was all. I was fine and I could go home soon. 

“Is it something that I can just deal with on my own? I really need to get out of here. It’s already depressing me even more. I had a code strong called on me already. I’m scaring all these other people.” I say, on the verge of begging him to let me go home. I just wanted to go home to my mother and live my life again. 

“I can’t let you go with the chance of you endangering yourself like this again.” He said, shaking his head a little bit, still maintaining that melancholy frown on his face. “This is your chance to get better. Don’t you want that?” He asked, and I couldn’t help but nod. I did want to feel the relief of not being paranoid all the time and having to deal with this mental disease. So I figured I would stay if it would help me feel a little better. 

“I’ll put you on some Prozac and some Abilify for now and we’ll see how that does for you, okay?” He said, and I nodded. 

“I’ll see you tomorrow, Harry.” He said, dismissing me from the small blue room that matched the boring blue hallway. 

I left the room with some weight on my shoulder to know the fact that I had Autophobia. Me, a normal everyday man trying to make it in the writing business, had Autophobia. It was a scary thought and I didn’t want to deal with it but I had to. 

I knocked on the door that lead back into the group session and they let me back in with open arms. I was still the scary new guy to them though. Except for one boy. Louis. His eyes sparkled with joy once he saw me walk back into the room, and it made me feel a bit.. shy. I was never shy around anyone but him. I even had boyfriends and they never made me feel this giddy about being simply looked at. It was something new to me. But I pushed it down like everything else. 

He motioned for me to come sit beside him since Zayn had left, and I walked over and took the empty seat beside him. The woman Ana had left and was replaced by a man named Jim, who was going to be taking us to the gym after he got the radio set up for us to listen to in the gymnasium. 

Louis smiled over at me with some concern and turned a little bit towards me. 

“How’d it go?” He asked. 

“Fine. Just.. lotta stuff to process.” I shrug a little. 

“Well, good thing we have process group after lunch!” He chuckled to himself, which made me laugh a little along with him. Maybe if I just gave this guy a chance, I might find that I could actually like him.


End file.
